A lot of contractors were probably waiting with bated breath to hear the latest news from the IR35 Forum. However, they were in for a disappointment when HMRC postponed the meeting scheduled for the 18th of January, saying there was more work to be done.
A spokesman for the Revenue said January’s meeting has been postponed for a month and will now take place on the 21st of February. HMRC decided that more work needed to be done before we held a full meeting of the Forum.
The full Forum last met in November 2011, and at that time two areas were identified where working groups would progress particular projects.
One subset of the Forum was tasked with discussing details of all the possible IR35 scenarios and establishing where there could be differences in the interpretation of the regulations. It was also recognised that some grey areas were bound to remain. The second Forum subset would discuss the operation of new proposals.
The working groups, which include external stakeholders, have already held discussions but they still need to do more work and therefore HMRC decided it was sensible to postpone the main January Forum meeting.
The IR35 Forum was organised by the Office of Tax Simplification and comprises representatives of HMRC, industry and trade associations, including the PCG. A new system for administering IR35 is due to be introduced this April.
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